Bill Oliver remembers being a white man fighting for equality in the South

Thursday

Feb 19, 2009 at 2:00 AM

By Eliot Baker I&M Staff Writer

Bill Oliver knew the Texas rangers dragging him across the Huntsville pavement would kill him given the opportunity. Being the only white man, he was pulled away from the voting rights demonstration before the courthouse by his arms. His compatriot, being black, was dragged by the feet to a row of shotguns leveled upon them by more rangers, who in 1965 East Texas were “a rogue police group, armed hooligans, strike breakers” serving the ultra-right-wing agenda of the John Birch Society.

“One of the Rangers said to the guys in the line, 'Block the street while we do to these guys what we gotta do,'” said Oliver. “I knew Rangers had held up nuns against trains and burned Mexican-Americans with gasoline. They were enforcers of what they considered 'the culture,' which was the culture of white supremacy.”

Raked across the pavement until blood stained his shredded clothes, Oliver finally noticed a lone FBI car roll before the cavalcade of shotguns. He managed to say "Hi, Bob" to the FBI agent, who returned the salutation and chatted briefly with the Rangers, taking notes, but not interfering as per government orders. The message was clear: Whatever happened to Oliver would be documented, leading to him being quickly jailed instead of something worse.

What happened next still brings tears to his eyes almost 50 years later. While Oliver looked on from his cell, a newly returned Vietnam veteran rallied 100 other protesters–black men and women, young and old, families with children–to march past the armed rangers and sit on the courthouse steps all night and sing. Being a demonstration, the FBI agent had to continue documenting the event, a moving event Oliver credits with saving his life.

Of the many times Oliver was jailed for protesting segregation and championing voting rights, his Huntsville experience most stood out.

Oliver's biography is interwoven with the seminal figures and events of America's civil rights movement. His life's work as a pioneering white Southern pastor fighting discrimination have made this year's Black History Month an especially poignant time for him, coming as it does on the heels of Barack Obama's inauguration. As students at Nantucket High School danced, sang, played jazz and read poetry Friday in tribute to the long, hard road towards a black President, it was fitting that Oliver would sit in the corner of the auditorium with his wife Renee, out of the spotlight and grinning.

“Somehow in my personal life I've had the opportunity to touch, feel, see and to talk–as well as in intellectual ways–all this transition, so it's fraught with great emotion,” said Oliver, whose constant good cheer and unashamed sensitivity could seem surprising for a man who drew strength staring down guns, the Ku Klux Klan, and seemingly insurmountable odds.

Oliver's father, himself a pastor, was deeply worried over his son's path. Oliver had already participated in a successful sit-in protesting segregated service at a lunch counter in Greensborough, Texas (which earned him a face full of DDT sprayed by the owner) when he accepted the “call to be pastor” at the Plymouth United Church of Christ Congregational in Beaumont, Texas. A national media frenzy ensued as Oliver realized he was one of the first white men to cross cultural lines and head a black church.

“My father told me, 'I understand why you're doing this, but do you understand how dangerous it is?'” recalled Oliver, noting that the Ku Klux Klan bookstore on Beaumont's Main Street was 10 miles from his home. “I knew segregation was wrong. I knew it was evil.”

But Oliver was largely alone in his convictions. He was “dis-owned” by once-close school friends as his activism became “not socially acceptable to acknowledge.” FBI documents showed he and his African American wife, Loretta, were nearly lynched by Klan members in the police department following their union, then a felony offense in Texas punishable by 15 years in prison.

Yet he still managed to thrive as a marked man, influencing some of America's most historic events. After becoming close with future Congressman and first black U.N. ambassador, Andrew J. Young, Oliver served as Texas representative for Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Oliver went on to serve on many government civil rights committees, lobbied for anti-poverty programs and helped spearhead the pro-choice abortion movement.

Along the way, he held conference with a dizzying number of political and cultural luminaries. He became familiar with Cesar Chavez during that actvist’s push for better working conditions for farm workers in the Rio Grande valley; was given a convivial political lesson by then Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; introduced activist and actress Shirley MacLaine to the attorney of the Ku Klux Klan; had Ralph Abernathy speak at his church; helped free Ben Chavis and the Wilmington 10 from their incarceration; and roomed with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

His campaign work has been legion, earning prominent campaign positions for President Jimmy Carter and serving as Jesse Jackson's campaign manager in Texas. In fact, Oliver declined a personal invitation to serve on the first presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, who he's known since 1972, having already committed to Jackson.

In Texas, Oliver chaired the campaign of his best friend, Albert J. Price, who became the first black state representative for East Texas. He also organized three congressional campaigns for anti-poverty activist, Mickey Leland of Houston, who remained in Congress for 20 years until his death in a plane crash in 1989.

His voting rights activity stands out to Oliver as the most significant political moment of his life. Two months after being jailed in Huntsville, Texas, Oliver joined Martin Luther King, Jr. in the legendary Selma to Montgomery march that led to the US Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, which outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. Oliver arrived in the third successful wave of the march on March 21 after five days and 54 miles of travel.

The first attempt on March 7 ended in brutality when police savagely beat the peaceful protesters in came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Oliver became tearful recounting the stirring account of protester, Elle Punder, a Mississipi voter registration activist “who'd never hurt a fly.”

“She took some people to the court house in Montgomery and they arrested her and beat her up. Andy (Young) had to put up her bail and get her out and when he got to her cell and he saw her, this diminutive woman, all puffed up, bloody face, her first words were: 'Freedom. Freedom.' And to have lived through that kind of world into a world with our new president is a huge change which we've had the opportunity to see.”

Oliver remains busy on Nantucket, where he moved with his wife Renee in 2000 to serve as director of technology for the Nantucket Public Schools. Since retiring, he continues to shuttle about the country for conferences and to visit with his children from his previous marriage. He and Renee are co-managers of the historic African Meeting House on Pleasant Street.

Renee said her husband entered his work mindful only of his faith. As a young, energetic pastor he sought a congregation that would accept him long enough to grow with families and impact their lives. He did that and much more in Beaumont, where the racial inequities besetting his rural congregation resonated with an entire country thirsting for social justice.

“Much of my life has been like that. I happened to be at the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time - whatever. And I've had more fun than you could ever imagine. You couldn't sit down and schedule all the junk I've had the chance to do. I'm still on two legs, and hopefully I've got some wisdom that come out of it.”

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